Change how required built-ins are polyfilled

[blowery]

The current npm packages that being built for Gutenberg polyfill usage of some browser features that are not available on older browsers. This polyfill is global and affects any client who uses the gutenberg npm packages. This is unexpected and can alter the runtime environment in surprising ways. Additonally, some client environments do not require these polyfills and would work without them. Bundling them increases the overall bundle size and slows down loading.

Instead, gutenberg's packages should take one of two approaches: use use babel's transform-runtime plugin to replace problematic built-in usage, or stop polyfilling altogether and declare that host environments must polyfill certain features for Gutenberg to work on downlevel browsers. The later is the direction being taken by react-dom and some other libraries that require full ES5 compliance.

Original discussion: #8057 (comment)

[gziolo]

This is the current state of art:

1. We use @babel/plugin-transform-runtime when producing a distribution version of packages. See:
   https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/master/packages/babel-preset-default/index.js#L23

2. We also add @babel/runtime-corejs2 as a dependency of each package which is transpiled, e.g.:
   https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/master/packages/blocks/package.json#L23

[blowery]

@gziolo The problematic line is https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/master/packages/babel-preset-default/index.js#L11. That includes polyfills that affect the global scope when a given module uses language features that require a polyfill on older browers.

[blowery]

Here's an example of what Gutenberg outputs today.

source:

function findCarrot( arr ) {
  return arr.find( item => item.type === 'carrot' );
}

transpiled:

"use strict";

require("core-js/modules/es6.array.find");

function findCarrot(arr) {
  return arr.find(function (item) {
    return item.type === 'carrot';
  });
}

My contention is that Gutenberg should not ship code that requires the core-js polyfill.

[gziolo]

@blowery, we have just published new packages to npm which have @babel/runtime usage replaced with @babel/runtime-corejs2. Can you double check if that changes anything?

/cc @aduth @youknowriad @ntwb

[gziolo]

Okey, this is still the case. I see:

import "core-js/modules/es6.array.find";

in https://unpkg.com/@wordpress/[email protected]/build-module/components/navigable-toolbar/index.js

Code of this polyfill:
https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/modules/es6.array.find.js

[gziolo]

Opened #9171 hoping that it will solve the issue. However I still see imports like:

require("core-js/modules/es6.array.find");

[gziolo]

This should be resolved with the #9171 and is now available on npm.

Check related versions of updated packages in df6f8da.